Physical therapy
I'm back with my same physical therapist as when I was trying to avoid the surgery at all. She's really awesome and understanding, and seems to think that the scar is healing well. Yesterday she was very sympathetic to my plight, and went easy on me while making sure we did the necessary ROM exercises. I was crying on my third rep of my first set, but it got easier once she let up on some of the exercises. I'm really looking forward to being able to do a full leg raise by myself; I'm close, but can't quite get it off the ground/couch without a bit of help. The bending to 30 degrees is going really well; I went from screaming when we did one to 20 degrees a week and a half ago to being able to do a full set of 10 without too much pain, and most of my second set as well (I do 3 sets of 10 total, 3x a day). Additionally, I have quad, glute, and hamstring contract-and-hold sets (also 3x/day with 3 sets of 10). When the pain is under control, I feel like I'm doing really well with them.
The pain :(
I had a lot of issues my first week getting my dosage right. Last week we went to 2.5-3 hours between pills for a while, but the pain was very severe at times, and I just wasn't ready to do both my exercises and wean. This week I now have to wean very aggressively because the doctor isn't responding to my calls about a half-refill so that I can wean at a reasonable rate. As a result over the past couple days I've spent more time in tears than I would like. Honestly, it sucks. A lot. I was assured by my physical therapist that because I was less than two weeks in, there was no rush to wean yet, and now I feel stuck because the doctor wont call me back, and his assistant says that no other doctor will sign a script because of the volume of narcotics I went through in the past two weeks. I called repeatedly talking about how little they were doing for me unless I was at the maximum safe dosage, but nobody wanted to help me then :/. She suggested I come back in for another follow up; it's possible that something isn't healing properly if I'm still in this much pain. Or maybe I am simply a pansy.
Sleep deprivation
My biggest problem is waking up in pain a few times, and eventually between 5 and 8 am, not falling back asleep. We go to bed between 12 and 1 or so most nights, but I am usually awake longer because I can't fall asleep easily, now that I'm basically off the narcotics. The pain yesterday morning when I woke up was excruciating, and I sat on the couch for a few hours after taking an extra strength tylenol and an Ibuprofin 600mg icing my knee; eventually after about half an hour of crying I freaked out and took half a norco. I'm normally a tummy sleeper, but obviously with this clunky brace on, and the pain I'm in, sleeping in any position besides on my back is very difficult to get into/out of, and generally results in me needing to readjust after short periods of time, which I can't do well if I want to sleep. I'm looking for sleeping positions that worked well for other people; if you know of any please email/facebok/text me, I would love to try something other than just laying on my back, hoping I'll pass out.
Wound healing pics below. They show the incision, so if you don't want to see it, don't scroll down :)
When the doc sent me home after my first post-op appointment, he told me the steristrips would come off on their own, and to leave them alone until about thursday, and help remove them after that point.
Friday came around with no sign of them budging so I took matters into my own hands...
There was one that was stubborn (left picture), and the ones around it were bleeding a bit more, so I left it alone, and took it off in the morning (right picture)
Yesterday when i was cleaning the wound with antiseptic spray, I noticed a yellow-blood tinged pus draining from the nasty spot on my lower incision and freaked out.
See? That's totally gross.
But this morning aside from that nasty spot, pretty much everything is lookin good. My physical therapist advised me to keep the butterfly bandages on until theres no blood at all.
